Dying Young
by The way I move
Summary: Rules help to keep the world safe but on the west-side of New York that isn't the case. The one rule that stays in New York is this 'Mind your own business and stay in your gang.' Dani Rico has always followed that rule and with a broken family and friends to protect that rule is apart of everyday life. But when someone takes things too far, her gang are left to feel the burn.


_**Chapter 1**_

I leave the packed bar, the strong musk of alcohol and cheap perfume lingering on my midnight black leather jacket, I'm humming a tune of a song that I don't know the name to whilst the crisp autumn breeze tickles the bare skin on my tattooed arms also making my hair billow and curl like silk, at least that's what my older brother says despite never physically seeing the fabric. I turn my attention to the moonlit sky, I feel my eyes soften at they hit the silver crescent moon as they trail the sharp edges and dark spots, I've always found some fun in look at the moon and stars although it goes far against my reputation of being cold as ice but knowing that something so childish like that can tear me down so easily just makes looking at it even more gorgeous like a forbidden love or watching as the first snowflakes fall.

My reputation stops any childish thoughts about me leaking out to unwanted minds though I know that most are just too afraid to speak up, I've done bad things in my life you don't even have to tell me about them as I already know every single one of them along with the punishment given, I don't mean to have a harsh temper or to lash out at any one however if my life wasn't so messed up then maybe I'd act different. How are you supposed to act when your mother left your family when you were only five, leaving you with a father that deals and does drugs for fun whilst managing to get drunk on russian vodka and crap supermarket whiskey, my oldest brother left the moment he turned eighteen though comes for visits every holiday for about a month before returning to his studies and school, he's now twenty-one, my second older brother is amazing though and never sees the bad side of people, not even his younger sister, only ever the good and I've always helped him whilst he manages to understand everybody around him with little effort.

I take out a cigarette from a navy blue small box that was in my jacket, before placing it in between my pale pink lips, lighting it within seconds as a memory comes into my head so I take a drag from the supposed cancer stick, removing to flick off a bit of ash only to place it back in my lips. I remember when one of my friends asked me where my mother was, we were playing around in the streets with me being around twelve and him being fourteen, he asked me where my mum was as he only occasionally saw my father walking in and out of the house, taking a shaky drag I breath out a line of thick grey smoke as the words I said hung thickly around me almost clouding my vision like steam would a mirror. I told him very firmly that she was a whore that ran away with another man when I was five, leaving me with two brothers and a dick of a father without even a goodbye, none of the others asked about my family after that situation all not wanting to be snapped at by yours truly however my cousin would always try as he always was the daring type, but hey we're family what do you expect.

Throwing away the half-used cigarette into the road, I turn into the path that leads directly into my house whilst running a hand through my hair as I try to calm my nerves, silently praying for my father not to be home yet however, like always, my prayers are never answered as a staggering male comes towards me after I've shut the door. He falls onto the crook of my neck, making me growl lowly as I personally hate any physical touching unless I like or mildly enjoy your company and even though he's my father, he has done too many things wrong to be forgive, then I feel a stinging pain on my hip so of course I make the mistake of looking down only to see before me a large slice with thick crimson red blood pouring out from it. His hand is placed under my chin, forcing me to look up towards this man I call a father with pure burning rage shinning in my eyes, I hate that I have to look exactly like this monster as now he smiles wickedly towards me before wordlessly slapping me across the face with the back of his hand, the harshness of the hit sending my face to bash against the wooden door as I feel a single metal nail pierce into the supple skin of my cheek.

"Get to the living room, I want to have a chat with you," he snaps, with a flat voice though I know that emotions are going to be shown in his voice very soon so I quickly stand and head to the dimly lit room as I feel tears begin to gather in my eyes when I notice that the opaque black curtains are closed, though I force myself not too as he'll just make this worse then it already has to be.

I hear the sickening click of the door locking behind my father, my eyes a squeezed shut as I try to block out what my father does next with his rough uncaring hands coiling themselves around my slender wrists, unlike what most think I do feel pain and I feel it more than anybody else could possibly imagine. I'm not cold-hearted…I'm just human, human like everybody else. My eyes open suddenly when I feel the cold steel of a knife placed on the middle of my neck, the tip is pressing in slightly and for the first time I feel that stinging pain whilst realisation sinks in as I begin to shift and move violently trying to escape his strong grip though I have no luck and the blade stays in place.

"I could kill you if I moved this knife, you would leave your brothers and me alone. Though, if I think about it, that's just what you want isn't _dear child_?" he whispered, dangerously low into my ear making my eyes widen and body stiffen "I won't allow you the pleasure, plus what will I do once my playthings gone?"

I was beyond pissed at this point, so I sharply elbowed him in the gut making him fall back onto the coach with a loud thud as the back of his head hit the wall, creating a head shaped dent in the plaster, leaving the kitchen knife discarded on the carpeted floor with a few drops of red liquid that accompany it causing me to reach for my neck with shaky hands. It's there I find a shallow slash on my neck, running it's way from the centre of my neck all the way to the top of my ear in a slick curve so I turned to face my dad but I stopped when I noticed that the blow to his head had knocked the bastard unconscious. Shaking my head, I quickly grabbed the knife from the floor before walking out of the room and out into the cold open world as I walked down the patio discarding the knife in the long emerald green grass, pulling out a cancer stick to take another smoke to find some way to relax.

I'm now back to walking down the street, hoping to find some comfort in the cigarette that I'm currently smoking as I get lost in the endless wave that's my thoughts and emotions, my attention suddenly turns to the tattoos that run down my arms. They're pasty white and form jagged patters that meet at the tip of my index finger on both hands however upon first sight most might think that these stopped at my shoulder yet in fact the tattoo was a complete design that started in the shape of a phoenix from just above my hips with the bird being a neon teal with indigo and pastel blue mixed in, the wings reaching the tips of my shoulders before turning into a trail of shadowed feathers that run gracefully down my arms. A smirk comes to my face but then quickly disappears as I remember when I first met my best friend, Byakuya Kuchiki, he called me cute but then again I was only six or seven and he was eight or nine, I'm now a teenager that gets called beautiful by many.

I personally don't believe it myself; I look rougher than a girl should and the ink just adds to that and my tomboy personality. I have knee length black hair that naturally combes itself over one of my eyes and curls into tight coils as it reaches the tips with dark tanned-skin, full plush pinkish lips, thick luscious eyelashes and perfectly done sharp eyebrows. I'm a mixed-race kid with both my mother being black and my father being white, we used to live in Chicago but moved here to New York when my oldest brother was born for the jobs that were available and, an apparently, better place to live, at times I want to be as far away from here as possible but I know that those feelings are only because I have my father beating on me every single night. Sometimes even twice. I've dealt with the racist remarks and learnt how to ignore them however when it comes to my body it's a completely different story as my body looks like a supermodel's. I have curves in all the right places with a thin waist, a busty well-rounded chest and nicely done thighs also I just so happen to be the owner of a set of '_jewels_' as my cousin so graciously said, he was talking about my eyes being a solid cold-steel green that fades into a deep fiery purple. I still have yet to find what ever the hell the cheeky bastard is talking about, _eyes like a jewel _complete and utter bullshit.

"Hey Dani!" Ichigo Koursaki calls, putting out the dimly lit cigarette with the heel of his worn-out tennis shoe before running over to join me in my nightly walk, I can't tell if he has noticed the cut on my neck though if he had he knew better than to question me about it.

Ichigo is a survivor just like me and most of the kids who live on this street, he has a family of his own with two twin younger sisters and a normal dad that works long boring shifts at the hospital only to be payed less than enough meaning that sometimes they can't have dinner, who tries his best to make his son better at fighting and learn to protect himself, trust me when I say this, I know love and care when I see it and that's in Ichigo's family. His mother died in a car crash when he was nine, creating the permanent frown that's forever on his youthful face and it scares me sometimes when I realise I can't help the kid, he's the smartest out of all of us that's for sure though gets put down by people calling him white trash.

The boy is my kid really, as according to everyone in the gang he worships the ground I walk on, but I can understand that coming from Ichigo's perspective because I had lost my mother as well and in his mind she was dead meaning that we were both just trying to make the most out of life without dying young, I've always liked the boy and thought of him more as little brother than a friend. I'm a lot closer with him than the others and am about three years older than him being the fourth oldest in the group and seen a lot of bad things in my life and grown up too fast, hell even I know that I grew up to fast.

He's a handsome kid at the age of fifteen, with spikey surprisingly natural orange hair that goes just below his chin and centre splits to perfectly frame his sharp face, if he straightened it but he stopped doing that because he wanted to look tough and strong like me and my cousin, Grimmjow, so now all he does is keep it spiked up so it's out of his eyes. He owns a set a chocolatey hazel eyes that shimmer gold in the sunlight, he has a slight build and well-toned arms though I know for a fact that those belong to his user of girlfriend, she doesn't even know what she has and uses him whenever he leaves to go to school, jail (it's rare but still happens) and home. I can't begin to understand what that relationship was built on however I can't question them, as the amount of times I've forgiven my boyfriend is countless.

"So how was school?" I asked, making him smile brightly towards me as he retells the events that took place that day almost managing to make me smile back, but that amount of emotion just isn't in my nature however I pull out a smirk that I keep only for him.

Whilst we're talking, I notice how his eyes shimmer when he talked about a dark-haired girl and had to I openly smile in realisation that he might actually be in love with someone who was different than the person he was currently with but all I wanted to know was about her so _I _can plan his next moves.

"Her name's Rukia, and boy is she short. Byakuya, I didn't notice you there. Hello," he stopped short as our second oldest member of the gang climbed out of his white beat-up van with his emotionless façade in place, just like always.

Byakuya Kuchiki is the hard working one out of all of us, taking on two jobs to help provide for himself and his little sisters, Hisana and his youngest sister who's name always manages to slip my mind whenever I try to think about her. The cold attitude was gained after he grew up to fast quickly skipping the happiness of childhood only to quickly enter the coldness of adult life as he stands at the age of nineteen and is the legal guardian of his two sisters. Both of his parents died in a mugging gone wrong causing the silently mourning family to nearly be torn apart before he finally got custody with the help of the gang of course though now he's become overly nervous for his family worrying to much about them being taken away.

I've known him since the first time I slept on the streets, my dad had just kicked me out and made sure to give me a black eye before I left the house, I was half asleep when I felt a cold hand come into contact with my forehead. We were both about eleven but at that time he towered over me like a thirteen-year-old, taking care of me all the same whilst being the only person other than my brothers and slightly insane cousin to show me care and compassion. After that, we just seemed to stick together as close friends until we later met the rest though first I had to introduce him to Grimmjow and boy was that interesting.

He has cold deep grey eyes that somehow hold all of his emotions in his endless pools of metallic silver, with a straight pointed nose that's been broken three times whilst his face his angular with a sharp chin. Shoulder length thick greased black hair has Byakuya though is usually worn in a low ponytail and he has a good build with tense muscles that he only ever shows when fighting. He's a tall boy really standing at six-foot two towering over everyone in the group with me only just about reaching his shoulder, but one thing is sure about the Kuchiki. His temper is legendary. Once he shattered Ichigo's jaw, of course I beat the living shit out of him afters.

One rule that is the universal rule throughout our side of New York, _touch my kid and your dead_.

"Which Rukia, Rukia Kuchiki?" he asked, one eyebrow cocked up as we walked down the poorly lit street towards Toushiro's house, his hands placed neatly in his leather jacket pockets with the sound of his car key jingling loosely on his index finger.

"Yeah, that's her!" Ichigo exclaimed, then a smirk came across my lips as I realised what territory he had just gone into with the older male, it just so happened that the little girl's name did ring a bell as she was Byakuya's baby sister.

Placing a comforting hand on Byakuya's shoulder, I got onto my tip-toes causing our walk to come to a stop so I could whisper something in his ear "Leave him, he's happy for once and not mopping about because of that slut he has as a girlfriend. Please just let them talk, I'll sort anything out if something goes wrong but if you lay any unwanted hand on him, I'll rip out your throat."

I had my ways of getting through to him, threats were my main option but sometimes the well-acted guilt trip worked greatly however he would tease me on my embarrassing times when we were kids or he'll create an argument based on me and my boyfriend. It looked like Ichigo didn't even notice that we had stopped because he was about six feet ahead of us humming a tune that was on the radio last night, with a skip in his step. Glancing back at Byakuya, we both shared a glare and straight away I regretted saying those words that just left my mouth, I was really stupid at times though it was a flash of blue that broke me out of our shared glare as I was lifted over someone's shoulder much to the amusement of Byakuya as a smile cracked out, loud laughter filling the empty street around us.

"Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, put me down!" I shouted, of course it just had to be my loud annoying cousin, how I'm related to him is always a wonder to me.

"No way in hell, well at least not until we get to Shiro's then I'll put you down," he stated, as I was flipped Byakuya the middle finger.

Grimmjow's my cousin and the most annoying person that I've ever met though unlike the rest in our gang I'd never hit the bastard, family is important in a neighbourhood like this and if you have brothers, sisters, cousins or half siblings you stick together no matter what as you never know who the next person to die will be. Together, the whole of New York call us 'Thunder 'n' Lightning' as the fights that we get into our something to see though our reputations are legendary and we're infamous around New York and trust me when I say, it's a good feeling.

His family life is better than mine but still pretty bad, he only has his mother even though she ignores him all the time or when she does she him she shouts so loud the whole neighbour hood can hear but his dad walked out the moment he was born so as far as he's concerned his father's dead to him. When he found out that we were cousins, he took it as a compaction for acceptation in society but when he found out about my dad everything changed, so now he takes the privilege of being like dad to me. He hates my boyfriend after finding out how many times I've forgiven him, in his words _"a man shouldn't treat his girl like some cheap whore, not when the girl is beautiful and loyal to him," _it's the only thing other than me that he can agree with Byakuya on. I shouldn't be dating my boyfriend.

Grimmjow has vibrant baby blue hair that turns white at the tips when the sun hits, with hair that naturally spikes up and sometimes down with a few strands covering his dangerous cyan eyes. He's also mixed-race with his father being black and mother white though luckily inherited all of his looks from his father, his mother's too rough looking for my taste. He's just an inch under Kuchiki though is the eldest out of all of us after just turning twenty last month though says he's waiting for me to finish high school before he starts college so we can be together even though he has the money. He's a movie star like face and it's annoying when he smiles because he can make any girl drop to the floor according to one of the girls that I know.

"We're here, baby girl," he said, snapping me out of my thoughts as I felt the cool air hit my face before a sudden sharp stinging pain came from…well it came from my ass.

Then I heard a lot of laughing as I was literally placed up back onto my feet by my underwear, so I spun round to see a red faced Toushiro laughing so hard that he was on his hands and knees coughing for air with Grimmjow and Byakuya glaring down at him as I try to fix my underwear back into place before turning on my heel to slap Toushiro across the face.

Toushiro Hitsugaya is the slightly jokey one though we mostly leave it to my second brother to do the jokes, he's in our gang as well though isn't here as much as the others because of college and stuff, he's twenty and my eldest brother is twenty-one. Though at time's he can be cold he still has the best family life than the rest of us with a loving father that is kind to all of us no matter what and is always there to bail us out. I love his dad if I'm honest, he's bailed me out of jail tones of times and only gave me a lecture afterwards, plus he knows about my father and life at home so it makes things better, his house was a safe place for all of us no matter what.

Snowy white hair was his best trait, as a few strands fall over one eye with the rest either being pulled back into a ponytail or left spiked up with grease. His skin is sun-kissed showing with a deep tan after the long hours in the gas station that he works at, whilst a pair of bright seafoam blue eyes could be staring at you with happiness one moment and blazing anger the next. Though the idiot's the third oldest, he's only older than me by about four months leaving him to make fun of my age even though most of the time it's the same age as his. He's two inches below Byakuya however his body has a better build and you can easily see the muscles that he owns on his tense frame.

"Prick," I muttered, opening the door to his house before slamming it behind me only for it to open again for Ichigo, Grimmjow (who was now dragging Toushiro inside by his shirt) and Byakuya who had stopped smirking and moved over to me with a serious look on his face.

"Your dad is looking for you, I saw him climb into his car he's going to be driving up and down waiting for you. So are you staying here tonight?" he asked quietly, whilst the others start playing a game of poker.

"It would be a good idea," I answered before we both made our way to the living room, just in time for Grimmjow to dish us out some cards whilst he flashes me a look that clearly reads _'what the fuck was that about_.'

Shaking my head, I pick up my cards trying to pay attention to the game whilst the frequent sound of a car's tires grinding against the road echoes in from outside and that constant fear comes back until a feel a hand on my covered thigh. I look up only to see Toushiro with a frown on his face as he tries to figure out what I'm thinking, sighing softly I turn away from the pleading eyes and back to the game as I finally realise what the white-haired male was focused on, my hand going to fix the collar of my jacket so the scabbing wound is covered on my neck. I know that I'm going to have a seriously long talk with him after this, damn his worrying.


End file.
